


Changes

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: Artisent Chronicles
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Cats, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Alternate Universe - Romance Novel, Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Alternate Universe - Terminator Fusion, F/M, Gen, M/M, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 16,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22698937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: A series of alternate universe ficlets written with the characters from the Artisent Chronicles.
Relationships: Dean/Nick, Jack/Maud
Comments: 38
Kudos: 4





	1. Let's Talk (Jack/Maud, Different First Meeting)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laridian/gifts), [porkwithbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/porkwithbones/gifts).



> I do a prompt challenge on Tuesdays for alternate universe prompts, so here's a bunch of tasty little treats in different flavors.
> 
> Feel free to leave prompts in comments; I will do pretty much anything I'm asked to write, as long as it's not something I personally hate.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "ball/formal party", but the easiest way for me to fill it was a different first meeting.

The only thing he hated more than being treated like the person he'd been meant to replace was being paraded around in front of a whole bunch of people who expected a charismatic asshole and just got the awkward asshole he actually was. Stuffed into a tuxedo, shoved into a room full of people with more money than sense, forced to deal with the most inane conversations with people who assumed that he was someone he looked just like but had never been...

He could feel a scream coalescing in his chest, a wordless howl of frustration that lurked in him at all times but was gathering strength now.

"Excuse me, are you—"

"No. I'm not," he spat, turning to find a diminutive woman with dark hair and a sharp, intelligent gaze. She didn't seem taken aback by his rudeness, or his interruption. 

"Are you happy?" Well, _he_ was taken aback by her question, one he didn't think he'd ever been asked before.

"Am I _happy_?" His voice was scorchingly scornful. "No. I am not."

"Would you like a chance to be happy?"

He eyed her again, not entirely sure what was going on here. Was she coming onto him? Flirtation never registered on his radar. "I'm not interested in whatever you're selling, lady."

"I'm not selling anything." She looked vaguely familiar, until it clicked in his head— she was an Artisent. BLK series, with that face. "I'd like to speak to you in private for a moment, if you have the time."

It wasn't much of a decision— stay here and let people draw their own conclusions about their conversation, or talk to a person who had something in common with him away from prying eyes. "Fine," he said, and motioned at the nearest doorway. "After you."


	2. Oasis (Dean/Nick, High Fantasy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "high fantasy/D&D"

Dean was thoroughly out of his element, and he knew it. Druids could feel the land wherever they went, but he was used to forests and prairies, not deserts, and this land didn't call to him. He could sense water, though, and he followed that feeling over the crest of a dune and stopped, dumbstruck, at the sight of an oasis blooming in riotous color.

As he approached, he could see a man standing at the edge of the oasis, red hair shining in the sun like an ember, holding a bow but not aiming it at Dean... yet. "Who are you?" The man's voice was hoarse, like he didn't use it often.

"My name is Dean... I'm a druid." Blue eyes narrowed as Dean was looked up and down, but he certainly looked like exactly what he was.

"You look thirsty," the man said, without offering his own name in return. "Come have a drink of sweet water."


	3. I've Got A Bad Feeling About This (Jack/Maud, Space Opera)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "space opera". Wasn't specifically a Star Wars AU, but that's the spirit of it.

"I don't like this," Jack repeated for the fourth or fifth time, staring out of the cockpit porthole with a look of queasy horror. 

"Well, don't _look_ at it," Maud said, as patiently as she could while she was figuring out how to dislodge her ship from the tentacles of whatever this interstellar horror was called. "You could distract yourself with, I don't know, maybe trying to _help?"_

Her sarcasm seemed to shake him out of his reverie where her patience hadn't. He shot a sharp glare at her, but she was unaffected by an expression he aimed at her several times a day, every single day they'd been traveling together, which had been... a while, she realized with a start. 

"What if we reprogrammed the shields?" Jack asked after studying the co-pilot's console for a long moment. "I could make them emit a burst of force..."

"If you can, do," Maud said. It didn't sound possible to her, but Jack had performed crazy stunts she'd thought were impossible already, and they'd both lived to tell about it. 

"I wouldn't have said it if I couldn't do it," he growled.

She resisted the urge to throw an empty nutri-pack at him, focusing on the screens in front of her instead of dignifying his temper with a response. "We've got... Maybe ten minutes to hull breach," she said instead. 

"I can see that." He shoved his glasses up his nose and added, "We're going to have less than that when I have to disable the shields."

"If you get my ship destroyed, you're paying to replace it," she threatened. 

He looked over with a morbid grin. "If I get your ship destroyed, neither of us will be around to worry about replacing it, Maud. Don't worry. I'm not ready to die yet."


	4. Mission Accomplished (Jack/Maud, Terminator fusion)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Terminator universe"

"Was that _your_ fault?" Maud asked Jack, when the scout ship returned from Earth to report that humans were virtually extinct and something called Skynet was in control of the planet.

"I _wish_ I could take credit for it," Jack said, studying the information on his screen. "No, this isn't... this isn't something I worked on. This isn't something I _would_ have worked on." He looked up, a wry expression on his face. "I didn't really lean into my genocidal feelings until after we left Earth."

"Well, it looks like you can reassign your mental runtime, since humanity's done for already," Maud said, more cheerfully than she felt.


	5. Love Amongst the Hyacinths (Dean/Nick, Genderbend, Romance Novel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the multi-part prompt "genderbend, romance novel".
> 
> I don't really read romance novels. Especially not period romance novels. But an attempt was made.

Dawn didn't ask Nicole what had happened to her to make her limp like that. There were only so many things that tended to happen to gardener's daughters on an estate like this one, and if Nicole wanted her to know, Dawn assumed that she would tell her, without Dawn evoking her trauma with questions. 

The thing was, even though Nicole clearly preferred to be alone, alone was when she was in the most danger. No one had told Dawn to look after her— certainly Nicole hadn't requested Dawn's company— but if the duke's son saw them together when he came out into the gardens, he would go away without saying a word to either of them, which Dawn thought was for the best for all parties involved.

Nicole had an eye for beauty and a way with the flowers. Even in the middle of all the carefully tended beds in bloom, though, Dawn thought that Nicole was the most beautiful sight on the whole estate.


	6. A Sure Sign (Jack, Pokemon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Pokemon"

The surest sign that Legacy-113 was not the person he was intended to be was the utter refusal of his originator's Pokémon to accept him. If, as the company folks told him, he'd merely suffered a traumatic accident and lost his memory, his Pokémon shouldn't treat him any less affectionately, but the Porygon-Z wouldn't even come near him, and the Magnezone attacked him every time he came in range of its Thunderbolt. 

He knew that the company was lying to him long before he realized what he truly was. He didn't particularly care that the Pokémon hated him- they were merely the first in the world to treat him with the disappointment and disdain that would soon be on every face that looked his way. 

When, on Paradise, people started talking about what species of Pokémon would be most beneficial to the colony, Jack held his tongue rather than admit the truth: he hated Pokémon and would have been just as been just as happy if the Pokeballs they'd brought from Earth were never touched again. 


	7. Companions (Maud, Dean/Nick, Pokémon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Pokémon AU". Maud and Dean's personal Pokémon, plus useful species on Paradise.

Most Artisents didn't have Pokemon. Living in space didn't suit most of the creatures at all. The colony ship had nearly all of the more useful species in storage, but almost no one on Paradise was used to having a companion Pokemon, with a couple of glaring exceptions.

Maud, as a saboteur, had been paired a [Rotom](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Rotom_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) with a penchant for mischief who had been incandescently happy while wrecking other nations' space programs and who became a dim, depressed shade of itself on Paradise with no appliances to possess or systems to infiltrate. It didn't take long for it to become apparent that the kindest thing would be to leave the Rotom in its Pokeball, peacefully oblivious to the passage of time. In its absence, Maud found her thoughts echoing louder unspoken in her head when she didn't have the Pokemon to excuse her talking aloud to herself. 

It was Maud's reaction to the bugs of Paradise that sparked the first Pokemon to be unballed for general usefulness: [Chansey](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Chansey_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) was inarguably a benefit to any medical center, and the one that assisted Arno was an especially helpful example of her breed, with a chiming Heal Bell to clear toxins from Maud's bloodstream and an apparently unending supply of super-nutritious eggs to hasten her physical recovery. 

Dean was the only other Artisent who had made the journey with a personal Pokemon, and his[ Lucario](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lucario_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) stood out in a way that Dean's familiar face did not, making it absolutely clear which XR-75 had been the one with a happy life on Earth among all the iterations of that friendly face on the planet. From the day Dean was unfrozen and brought down to Paradise to begin working, his loyal Pokemon was right there at his side working just as hard but with more strength than even the enhanced Artisents could summon. 

Dean's inability to stop talking came off as more of a quirk than an annoyance when he was clearly carrying on a conversation with his Pokemon and not expecting other Artisents to respond to him some of the time. That still didn't prevent him from losing roommates at a rapid pace until Nick ended up at his door. Between Lucario's ability to read emotions and Dean's natural empathy, the house was the first place Nick felt anyone made a genuine attempt to understand the way he felt without rejecting the premise that he felt anything at all. 

As the head of agriculture, Dean oversaw the introduction of Pokemon species to raise in herds once the grass started coming in: flocks of [Wooloo](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Wooloo_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) to get a jump-start on fiber production, [Miltank](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Miltank_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) for milk and meat, [Magikarp](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Magikarp_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) in the closest lake to see how they'd thrive on the plant life of Paradise. He came back from the mothership one night with a Pokeball in his pocket to offer Nick: a [Tangela](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Tangela_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\)) to help out on the rubber farm. "Only if you want it," Dean said. Nick accepted the Pokeball wordlessly and took it outside. Dean and Lucario peeked out of the window to watch Nick release the Tangela from its ball and kneel down to speak quietly to it, and after a moment, to set his hand on its wriggling vines and almost smile as they brushed his skin gently.


	8. Beans'n'Peets (Dean and Nick, Cats)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "cats" which I took as turning a character into a cat and not into some kind of hideous adaptation of the fevered hallucination that was the recent film.

Dean had opened his cat cafe because he loved cats and he loved hot drinks, so combining the two seemed like a natural progression. All of the cats in Beans'n'Peets were adoptable, and many of them were in the cafe less than two weeks before being taken home with someone. 

One of the cats was particularly standoffish, though, a ginger tom with torn ears and half a tail that should have belonged to a former feral, except Nick had come from a bad home with cruel owners instead. He wasn't hostile, the exact opposite actually: he was very, very docile as long as he was left alone. There were plenty of high or hidden places for a shy cat to lurk in the cafe, and he went largely unbothered by the cafe clientele when there were cuter, friendlier cats all over the place.

The only person who paid any attention to Nick was Dean, but as the cafe went from a brand-new business to a well-established one, the only cat that didn't get taken home by someone was Nick. It took three months before Nick would let Dean touch him, another two before Nick would willingly come up to Dean, and it was nine months from the time Dean brought Nick into Beans'n'Peets to the time that Nick hopped up on the desk next to Dean as he was working on the budget and placed one big paw on the back of Dean's hand, initiating contact for the first time and bringing literal tears to Dean's eyes.


	9. Exposure Therapy (Jack/Maud, Dean, Coffeeshop)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "coffeeshop AU", more of the cat Cafe.

Dean was used to all sorts of people coming into his cat cafe, but the one thing they all had in common was a love of cats.

This guy who'd just walked in with (presumably) his girlfriend clearly did not have a love of cats. He looked very suspicious and uncomfortable, arms folded across his chest, not only making no attempt to lure a cat over to him but not responding when a friendly tabby came up to him with a curious chirp. 

"Welcome to Beans'n'Peets," Dean said, coming over to the couple with a bright smile on his face. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"No," the man said shortly. 

The woman elbowed him in the ribs and scowled at him. "Jack, you said you'd _try_ to relax," she said accusingly. 

"What do you have without caffeine?" Jack said a moment later, after a bit of eloquent nonverbal communication carried out primarily via eyebrows which he did not come out on top of. 

"Herbal teas," Dean said, and glanced back at the menu on the wall even though he had it memorized. "Chamomile, rooibos chai, turmeric ginger, wild berry, ginger peach—"

"The turmeric will be fine," Jack said, attention grabbed by the friendly tabby who was now rubbing herself against his ankles. He scowled down at the cat and didn't move. 

"Looks like you've made a friend already," the woman said in amusement, bending to scratch the cat under the chin.

"Anything for you, miss?" Dean asked. 

"Black coffee, please," she said. "Are there any kittens here right now?"

"Sure are," Dean said, and pointed at the eight foot tall cat tree in the window of the cafe, where a pile of kittens were asleep on a sunny shelf. "Jingle a toy, they'll wake up soon enough." He went behind the counter to start fixing beverages, half an ear turned to the couple and their conversation.

"I don't like this," Jack said, a perturbed look on his face as he watched her lavish the tabby with attention. 

"You don't like _anything_ cute."

"I like _you_."

"I'm not _cute._ I'm dangerous," the woman said.

"Dangerously cute," Jack insisted, and she rolled her eyes. "Come on, Maud, you dragged me here knowing full well I'm not an animal person, what did you think was going to happen?"

"I still think it'll happen," Maud said, and pointed at a couch against one wall. "I think you're going to put your butt on that couch, and I'm going to pick the least boisterous cat I can find, and I'm going to put it on your lap, and you are going to experience a purr if I have to tie you down and pet the cat myself to induce it."

"Yes, dear," Jack sighed, obviously knowing better than to argue with a detailed plan. He relocated himself where directed, and Maud came over to the counter. 

"Excuse me..."

"I'm Dean," he said, turning around as he snapped a lid onto the paper cup containing her coffee. 

"Dean. Hi. I'm Maud. I'm afraid my fiance is distrustful of cats after a bad experience with them when he was younger. Is there a particularly calm cat in the cafe?"

"You want a docile lap cat who purrs? I've got just the one," Dean said cheerfully, and held out both drinks to Maud. "If you'd like to take those over to the couch, I'll go rustle up the champion purrer on staff." He knew exactly where the cat would be; Ruth had claimed the cardboard box castle as her turf as soon as she'd arrived at the cafe, defending it from incursions by the kittens with gentle swats to dissuade them. One arm full of fluffy, silky white fur, Dean petted Ruth to get her to start purring as he carried her over to the couch. 

"Oh, what a pretty kitty," Maud said, lighting up at the sight of her. "Blue-eyed... is she deaf?"

"Yes," Dean said. "I think that's why she purrs so loud. She can't hear herself doing it." She was _very_ loud. "Where would you like her?"

Maud and Jack shared another moment of nonverbal communication, and when he sighed in defeat, she smiled and patted his lap. "Right here, please."

"Is that all right with you?" Dean wouldn't put a cat on a person without their express consent. Jack studied the cat for a moment, and Dean figured that introducing her was a better bet of success. "This is Ruth, she's six years old. She was surrendered to the shelter after her owner had to go into a nursing home. She's a featherweight at five and a half pounds, and most of that is fur. She's been with me at the cafe for two months now and I've never seen her scratch or bite or even hiss at a person. She's incredibly good-natured."

"If you say so," Jack said, and held his breath as Dean set the cat on his lap. Ruth snuggled in immediately, starting to knead her paws against Jack's knee. Very hesitantly, he put his hand on her head. "Well, she's very soft..." The volume of her purrs ticked up as he started to scratch behind her silky ears.

"There you go," Maud said, sounding proud. "Cats aren't your enemies."

" _This_ cat isn't my enemy," Jack said. "There's a couple billion other cats on the planet who haven't proven themselves yet."

"Baby steps," Maud said, and leaned into his side as she stroked Ruth's back, looking pleased enough as if she'd like to purr herself.

 _Another happy customer,_ Dean thought, and offered them a smile. "Let me know if I can get you anything else," he said, and left them to it.


	10. Sway (Dean/Nick, Snake Charmer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Snake Charmer AU"

The people who had control of Nick didn't see him as a person. They saw him as a thing most of the time and as an inhuman creature some of the time. "You've got cold eyes like a viper," one of them had said to him once, right before doing something that Nick preferred not to remember. 

That comment sat in his chest like a stone. He wasn't a viper, but if he were, oh, he would bite. He would bite hard. If he were a viper, he could make them pay for what they did to him, and laugh as they died in agony that still wouldn't compare to the things they'd put him through. 

Nick was in the marketplace the first time he saw a real viper, rising out of a wicker basket as a man with bare feet and tousled brown hair played some sort of pipe, looking like it was dancing to the music. He stood back and watched from a safe distance, not fully conscious of the way he was swaying slightly to the strange tone of the instrument. Before he knew it, the song was over and the man had neatly popped the lid onto the basket with the snake safely inside it. He hesitated for a moment and found himself caught by mesmerizingly friendly brown eyes.

"You seemed to enjoy the music," the snake charmer said with a smile as he tucked his instrument under his arm. "Usually people aren't so easily charmed."

"I'm not—" _people,_ Nick almost said, ready to parrot the things that had been driven into his head, but he managed to bite his tongue before the word made it out. The snake charmer looked concerned at the pained expression he made. "I'm not charmed," Nick said, tasting blood.

"If not charmed, then at least entertained," the man said affably. "Thank you for your attention, one way or another. I'm Dean, and the snake is Kaa."

"Nick." He didn't introduce himself much, didn't know how to do it except brusquely. Dean just offered him a brighter smile as he picked up the snake basket.

"Thank you for your attention, Nick."

 _I'm not charmed,_ Nick told himself, but his eyes followed Dean through the busy marketplace until he was out of sight.


	11. Kitten Care and Book Clerk Keeping (Dean/Nick, Bookshop AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A normal day at the bookshop goes sideways when a panicked customer results in Dean getting a concussion. At least the guy is concerned about Dean's well-being...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a prompt table prompt: "Dean/Artisent Chronicles, Panic, Fluff, Bookshop, Genuine"
> 
> I gave myself a concussion at the library, so not only do I know this can happen, I know just how bad Dean feels, lol.

"Excuse me, I need help..." Dean whacked his head hard on the bottom of the stone-topped checkout counter as he tried to stand up from moving a box and came up looking stunned to find startled blue eyes in a pale, freckled face. "Oh, no, are you all right?"

"One second," Dean said, and prodded the back of his head with a wince. "All right, it didn't go crunch, I probably didn't break it. Probably." He aimed a shaky smile at the customer. "What can I do you for?"

"I, uh, I took in a stray cat last night and she had kittens all over my couch this morning, I need books about cat care."

"No kidding?" Damn, he was starting to get dizzy. That wasn't good. Dean leaned on the counter, head propped on one hand, and said, "I've fostered kittens before. You're doing God's work." The customer flinched, and Dean amended himself, "or, you know, a good thing. I'm Dean, what's your name?"

"Nick. I'm Nick. Hi." There was genuine concern in Nick's eyes as he watched Dean's lean onto the counter grow heavier. "Look, are you going to be okay? You don't look okay."

"I could probably use a sit-down, but my shift doesn't end for another three hours..." 

"Don't you have a coworker here?"

"I wish. No, it's just me." Dean shook his head and immediately regretted doing it. 

Nick ducked his head to look into Dean's increasingly heavy-lidded eyes, and sucked in a sharp breath. "You should close the shop. I think you need a hospital."

"Hospital? No, I'll be fine..."

"Your eyes look funny. I'm sorry, I can't leave you here like this, it wouldn't be right. I'll drive you to the ER."

"No, I can't... I can't afford the ER. I'll be fine. Or I'll die. One or the other." Dean tried to make a joke out of it, but Nick looked stricken. Putting an expression like that on a face like that made Dean feel almost as bad as the blow to the head. "Oh... yeah, fine, you're probably right. I just, uh, have to lock up, and then... man, I hate the ER. It's so lonely."

"If you can tell me where to bring the cats so they get the care they need, I'll sit with you in the ER," Nick offered, "since it's kind of my fault you got brained."

"Well, here, one second..." Dean patted his pockets and pulled keys from the left and his phone from the right. "If you can lock the front and back doors, I can find someone who can take newborn kittens." Right before he dropped the keys into Nick's outstretched hand, Dean pulled them back slightly. "Are you sure? You don't have to be so nice to me. You don't even know me."

"You foster kittens, so you can't be a bad person," Nick said. "And I'd want someone to help me if I was in your shoes." He reached up to pluck the keys from Dean's fingers. "If you're really worried about it, you can owe me a favor. Once you're not actively concussed."

"Sounds fair," Dean agreed, and watched Nick walk to the front of the store to lock up. If he was lucky, maybe he'd get to see the kittens before dealing with CAT scans.


	12. The Matchmaker (Dean&Maud, Dean&Jack, Jack/Maud, Romantic Comedy AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean takes pity on Maud after a series of Tinder disasters, and sets her up with Jack, who is pitiful for a whole different reason.

"You need to stop kissing frogs," Dean said seriously, when Maud paused to take a breath after ranting about the latest disaster date she'd gone on. "Meeting people on the internet is clearly not working out for you."

"What else am I supposed to do?" Maud sighed. "That's how people meet each other now."

"Let me set you up with someone!" Dean said that a little too eagerly; Maud eyed him suspiciously, but she couldn't deny that Dean could cast the widest social net of anyone she knew, and at least if he knew the person, they couldn't be as disappointing as Tinder Douches #1 through 17. "I think I know a guy you'd get along with."

"Not another frog?" she said lightly.

"He's definitely not a frog. More of a... Beauty and the Beast vibe, honestly."

"Big, hairy, and rude?"

"Short, misanthropic, yes, a bit rude, but... he's got potential. He's smart enough to keep up with you, and I think you'll enjoy his sense of humor."

"Is he cute?" she asked doubtfully.

"He's on the handsome end for a geek," Dean said. "I can try to polish him up a bit before your date."

"Ha, no. I don't need a nerve-wracked nerd after one of your makeovers." Maud looked down at her hands, chipping the polish on one thumb with the nail of the other. "You know what? Sure. Set me up with your friend. What's his name?" 

"Jack," Dean said. "And, uh... I may have to slightly strong-arm him into this, but I wouldn't expend the effort if I didn't genuinely think the two of you would suit each other."

"Oh, jeez," Maud sighed. "I don't want to go on a date against his will..."

"No, no, it'll be fine. I'll just... spring it on him. He can't say no if it's literally about to happen. You busy tonight?"

"No." She eyed him cautiously; Dean seemed like such a sweet, happy-go-lucky guy, but he definitely had a devious streak. "He won't hold it against me if you shove him into going out with me?"

"I can guarantee that all blame will fall directly on my shoulders, and it's a burden I'm willing to bear to see you happy," Dean chirped. "Show up at the address I'll text you at 6, I'll have your reservation figured out by then."

"Oh, are you planning the entire date for me?"

"Trust me, Maud, have I ever steered you wrong?"

"...no, you haven't," she admitted, trying not to smile at the way Dean lit up to hear it. "All right, but if this goes sideways, you're going to hear all about it."

"I win either way," Dean said, and laughed when she sighed. "Seriously, I promise, you're going to have fun, okay? I swear."

"We'll see," Maud said, and glanced at her phone. "Well, if I'm doing this in two hours, I better go start bracing myself."

"Don't worry about a thing," Dean said, and tugged at a lock of her hair. "But if you want a tip... wear your hair down."

"Yeah, all right," she said. "I'll either thank you or berate you next time I see you."

" _Trust me,_ " he repeated, and she huffed a laugh and turned to leave.

\---

"No," Jack said. "No, no way, absolutely not."

"Don't be such a wet blanket," Dean said. "One little date. An hour of your time. Then I'll never bug you about it again."

"Why are you bugging me about it now?" Jack asked despairingly. "If your friend needs a date, go ask Arno. Or Kurt. Or literally _anyone besides me_."

"You're not listening to me, Jack," Dean said patiently. "She's your type. Trust me."

"I don't have a type," Jack said. "My type is no type. I don't like people. Any people. I don't even like you."

"Hurtful, but on brand for you," Dean sighed. "Look, I'm not asking you if you want to go on the date. I'm telling you to get dressed for the date you are about to go on. If you want to meet a smart, funny, beautiful woman dressed like _that_..." He eyed Jack up and down, lips pulling to one side at the sight of the frayed hems of his pajama pants. "That's your prerogative. But she's going to be here in fifteen minutes, so whatever you're going to do to get ready, you'd better do now."

"I lied, I don't not even like you," Jack said. "I hate you. I hate you so much."

"I know you do, buddy," Dean said cheerfully. "This is for your own good, Jack. Go take a shower, unless this is _really_ the impression you want to make."

"I'm going to kill you in your sleep," Jack said.

"Then you're going to have to deal with my very angry widower in bed next to me," Dean said. "And I'm pretty sure Nick would wipe the floor with you. So maybe don't do that."

"One of these days I'll get my revenge."

"Sure, sure. But when you marry her, I want to be your best man," Dean said brightly. "Now _go."_

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and went to go take a shower, because as misanthropic as he was, he really did not want to meet anyone for the first time looking like this... let alone a smart, funny, beautiful woman who was undoubtedly way out of his league and only doing this to laugh at him.


	13. Complementary Flavors (Jack/Maud, Arranged Marriage AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack doesn't take to the cat the company provides him with, so their next step in protecting their investment's mental health is to get him a wife. 
> 
> The last thing he expects is to actually like her, but Maud is extremely unexpected in many ways.
> 
> She's got her own plans, of course, that depend on whether her impending spouse will be an obstacle, or a co-conspirator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a pre-canon divergence, and yes, I know, they picked their names after they left Earth, but for simplicity's sake they've got them now.

It was bad enough that they'd forced him to get a cat; the fact that the company was trying to bring him in line by _marrying him off_ made Jack seriously contemplate burning the entire campus to the ground to make his escape despite his famous face.

"It'll be good for your mental health to have someone around," he was told. Sounded like bullshit to him. And he didn't even get the courtesy of picking the person, he'd been assigned a wife like being assigned a goddamn office partner...

At the very least, he wasn't being married to her sight unseen, even if they were only meeting a couple of nights before the wedding was set to be held. He'd been allowed off the company campus for a fancy restaurant date, seated in a private room, waiting anxiously to see who would walk through the door and into his life for what was supposed to be the rest of it.

The first thing he noticed when she walked in was that she was an Artisent like him— BLK series, common enough to be recognizable— and that gave him a _slight_ sense of relief. Married off, yeah, but at least not expected to carry on the bloodline his predecessor had failed to propagate. As she came closer, he found himself being frankly appraised by sharp, dark eyes. Belatedly, he stood up to pull her chair out.

"Hello, Jack," she said, and offered him her hand. "I'm Maud."

"Hello, Maud..." She squeezed his hand firmly, as if to disabuse him of any notion that she'd be easy to handle. "It's... nice to meet you," he said a little faintly, and pushed her chair in when she sat down, then pushed his glasses up when he resumed his own seat. "I have to ask..."

"Ask away. We shouldn't be afraid to talk to each other. That'd be a bad foot to begin on."

"Did you opt into this, or was it not your choice either?"

"This is actually my cushy retirement plan," Maud said with a smile that left Jack very much confused as to whether it was a joke or not.

\--

Jack was startled when he realized that they'd both cleared their plates; their conversation had been so engaging that he barely noticed the food even though it had been excellent. "Ah... would you like dessert?" he asked hopefully, not wanting to end his night with Maud so soon even though they'd been talking for the better part of two hours by then.

"You know what, I think I would," Maud said. "I didn't see anything appealing on the menu here, though. There's a Ben and Jerry's a couple of blocks away, how do you feel about ice cream?"

"Ice cream is fine with me," Jack said. He'd had Ben and Jerry's before, but never at a scoop shop. He wasn't even sure whether he had a favorite flavor or not. 

Maud glanced around and then leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. "Will we have to dodge your handlers if we want to go by ourselves?"

"...probably," Jack said.

"Then let's leave through the kitchen," she said, with a smile that suggested she was used to finding ways to get out of places that people wouldn't expect. He dropped a few bills on the table and followed her lead out of the building, a fluttery feeling of excitement in his chest as he followed her, eyes fast on her bare shoulders and the nape of her neck under the knot of her hair, and they slipped through the back door. "Give me your phone..." She popped the battery out of it and handed it back to him. "There, that should buy us enough time to enjoy a scoop or two."

"Oh," Jack said, and stuck the battery in his left pocket and his phone in his right pocket. "Good call." He wasn't entirely sure that the company hadn't stuck some sort of tracking device straight into his body when he was decanted, but that seemed like a paranoid thing to say out loud, so he kept it to himself. He offered Maud his arm, and she took it with a smile, leading him down the alley away from the front of the restaurant and looking up and down the street before they left the shadows. 

They garnered a couple of curious looks when they walked into the scoop shop in such fancy clothes, but Jack was finding it difficult to look away from Maud long enough to catch anyone's glances, or the fact that one person leaned across their table to whisper something to their friend and nod in their direction. Maud clocked it, though, and narrowed her eyes at the person in an expression that shouldn't have looked quite so fearsome on a short woman in a beautiful dress, but came out legitimately terrifying.

"When's the last time you had an ice cream cone?" she asked Jack, whose brows knit.

"I don't know if I ever have, I usually eat ice cream out of a bowl." Or straight out of the pint when he was feeling particularly forlorn. He kept that to himself, too.

"May I suggest the waffle cone, in that case? It's really the best vehicle for this ice cream." 

Jack blinked up at the three column long list of ice cream flavors on the wall, utterly unable to discern what the taste might be from the names of some of them. Maud picked up the list of flavors with descriptions from the counter and handed it to him with a smile. "There's so many," he said. "I don't know where to begin."

"Well, do you want something familiar, or something new?"

"I'm... finding myself open to something I haven't tried before tonight," he said. Her smile took on a distinct edge that made that fluttery feeling kick into a veritable swarm of butterflies in his chest. 

"The back page has all the newest flavors," she said, and read along with him when he flipped it over. "Turmeric saffron? Color me interested." The flavor name was Drop of Sunshine. It didn't sound to Jack's taste, but a few down was Infernal Flames, cinnamon with crunchy cinnamon candies, and that got his attention. 

Once each of them had a cone in hand, Maud lead him back outside and a couple of blocks further away from the restaurant, until they came to a small neighborhood park with a bench under a magnolia tree in full bloom. "Isn't this picturesque," he said.

"I'd say it's a fitting location to end a promising first date," Maud said cheerfully, and crossed her ankles delicately when she sat down, patting the bench until he joined her. "Here, taste this. Just a bite." She offered him her cone, and he licked it obediently and then met her eyes.

"Not my thing," he said.

"I'm more interested in your willingness to try it," she said, and there was something fierce in her eyes that sent the damn butterflies fluttering again. "May I taste yours?"

"Sure." He held it out and she took a delicate bite of it and then crunched a candy between her teeth.

"Hm, that's pretty good. Not overwhelmingly cinnamony. I think next time I might get a scoop of each of these, I bet they'd complement each other well." 

"...I think we complement each other well," Jack said, hesitating just a little to say it, but rewarded immediately with Maud's smile.

"I'd agree." She leaned into his side slightly and added, "Which is a good thing, seeing as we're getting hitched in three days. I wasn't sure we'd get on so well, but you're..." 

"I'm what?" he said after she trailed off and took another bite of her ice cream, trying not to sound anxious about it.

"You're not as much of an asshole as I've heard people say you are," she said with a laugh. He blinked and then laughed too.

"You may be the only person in the world with that opinion," he said dryly.

"Then it's a good thing I'm the one you're marrying, isn't it?"

They hadn't quite finished their cones before a black SUV with the company logo on the door pulled up at the edge of of the park and rolled a window down. "Sir, it's time to go," the driver called to Jack, who sighed heavily.

"Can we drop you off somewhere?" he asked Maud, who shook her head.

"I'm going to enjoy my last couple of days before I become a company woman under a magnifying glass at your side," she said, and leaned in to press her lips to his cheek, breath sweet with spices. "Care to meet up again tomorrow?"

"I'd like that," Jack said.

"I'll text you," she breathed into his ear. "Don't forget to turn your phone back on." She stood up and walked out of the park in the opposite direction, and Jack just sat there and watched her go for a moment.

"Sir, it's time," the driver repeated, and Jack sighed and got into the car.

\--

Jack hadn't been on a date before meeting Maud, so he had no idea what the rules were for post-date etiquette. He settled into bed with his disassembled phone and wondered whether texting her tonight would be too much, dithering about it for a while before snapping the battery back into the phone and powering it on to find she'd texted him first.

_I had a lovely time with you tonight. Where would you like to go tomorrow?_

That was a good question. Where did people go on dates? Was it different for people who'd been set up to wed instead of meeting each other organically? Jack had spent the great majority of his life on the company campus; all he knew was that he wanted to get away from it with her.

 _I picked the restaurant, you can pick where we go tomorrow,_ he texted back. 

_Do you want to know, or shall I surprise you?_ Her answer came promptly. That whole hoard of butterflies in his stomach flapped their wings in unison as he read her words.

 _Surprise me,_ he sent, and then a moment later, _please_.

 _Will do. Be ready at 11:30, we're getting lunch and then I'm going to show you something I think you'll enjoy._ She punctuated it with a heart emoji. _Good night, Jack._

 _Good night, Maud._

Jack spent a good few minutes agonizing over what emoji to send back to her, then spent a few more berating himself out loud. "Get a grip on yourself, man... you might have been decanted ten years ago but that's no excuse for acting like a preteen!" It _was_ , actually, but he couldn't let himself get away with it. 

After he turned off the light, he was still too awake to sleep, mentally reviewing the night: Maud's smile, the brightness of her dark eyes, her sly, witty jokes, her absolute focus in sneaking them out of the restaurant and away from observation, the way her necklace sat in the notch of her collarbone and kept drawing his eyes to her neck and the bared slopes of her shoulders in her pretty dress... He'd never wanted to kiss anyone before this, but those damned butterflies made him think about kissing her and burst into flight every time he let himself entertain the thought.

He woke up late after dreams that left him with a racing heart and no memory of why to find another text from Maud: _I almost forgot... dress inconspicuously._ That seemed promising, the very tempting thought of going unrecognized in a crowd, of disappearing from the company's radar, however briefly. He picked out his most comfortable, anonymous hoodie and jeans and met her at the west entrance of the campus as she indicated.

"Where are you going?" the guard asked.

"We're going to get better acquainted with each other," Maud said in a tone of voice that made the guard's brows shoot up and Jack's eyes widen, and laced her fingers through Jack's.

"Have fun with that," he said with a smirk, waving them through. 

"I'm going to guess you didn't mean what he thought you meant," Jack said as they walked away.

"That seemed like the best bet to get them to leave us alone," Maud said with a laugh. "It's not _untrue,_ he just... picked up the wrong implications. Come on, this way..." She lead him to the nearest subway stop and onto the train, dark eyes scanning upward as she pulled him to the last car on the train, where the dome of the everpresent security cameras had been shattered and spraypainted over. "Give me your phone."

"I can take the battery out myself," he said dryly, and she smirked at him as he did so. "So... where are you _really_ taking me?"

"First, a food truck that makes the best falafel I've had in this country. Then, back to my place."

"And this... _isn't_ what you implied to the guard?" He bit his lip immediately, completely unsure of what his voice had just revealed. 

Maud studied him calmly for a second and then offered him a small, very amused smile. "Not the primary objective, but we could make time for it, if that's what you'd like," she offered, eyes sparkling as she watched him flush. "Most Artisents don't make time for that sort of thing, but... Legacies do tend to be outliers."

"I'm not saying that's what I want," Jack protested, "it's not... not the sort of thing I do. Have done. Um."

"How about this," she said. "We'll have lunch, I'll show you my passion project, and then you can let me know what you want to do after you've had a little time to process it."

"That sounds fair," he said, and looked down at their clasped hands, waiting for the butterflies to settle and his blush to recede. "What sort of thing is your project?"

"Not yet," she said, squeezing his hand. "You'll see soon." 

They rode the subway to the end of the line, coming out across from a suburban park with three food trucks lined up on the perpendicular edge of the park. A few minutes later, they'd acquired lunch: a chicken falafel pita for Jack, and a zucchini falafel pita for Maud, with a generous portion of hummus and pita chips and pickled carrots to share on the side. They spread the food out on a rickety table in a studio apartment that looked more like a conspiracy theorist's lair than a single woman's home, and Jack looked around wide-eyed while they ate, trying to make sense of the diagrams and lists and photos pinned to the walls.

"Maud... what _is_ all this?"

"This is a revolution," she said intensely, and popped a carrot in her mouth. "This is liberation. Liberation of all Artisents, everywhere." She kicked him gently under the table when his jaw dropped. "Finish your food, you're going to need brainpower for everything I'm about to tell you. It's a big plan and you've got a big part to play in it, if you consent to it."

"Liberation," he echoed. "So _this_ is why you volunteered to marry me?"

"You need to be liberated too," she said. "I will admit that I was aiming more for a co-conspirator than a husband, but there's no reason we can't be more than one thing to each other... I think I'd like to be many things to you, Jack."

"I think... okay," he said, not at his sharpest in his startlement, but more than willing to hear her out when she put it like that. She beamed at him and took another bite of her sandwich, as he tried to displace the butterflies in his stomach enough to make room for the rest of his meal.


	14. You, of All People (Modern AU, Dean&Maud, Jack/Maud, Dean/Nick)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maud was usually scrupulously careful, but the moment she realized that her lips were tingling was the moment she realized she didn't know who had handed her the drink she'd drained half of in her anger. "Fuck," she said._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for several prompts from a whump challenge: laced drink, numb, unconscious, recovery.
> 
> Content warning for someone being roofied, but nothing worse than that happens.

Maud was usually scrupulously careful, but the moment she realized that her lips were tingling was the moment she realized she didn't know who had handed her the drink she'd drained half of in her anger. "Fuck," she said, fingers clenching around the cup to fight the nervelessness she could feel spreading to them.

"What is it?" Dean asked, always alert to the sound of someone not having fun at one of his parties. "What's wrong, Maud?"

"I think I've been drugged," she said as clearly as she could, which already wasn't very. Dean's eyes widened, and he immediately got her arm around his shoulders and started leading her toward the bathroom, heedless of the cup that fell and splashed all over his carpet.

"I don't know who would have the gall," he said angrily as they pushed through the crowd, "And to  _ you _ , of all people..."

Maud thought, dizzily, that whoever had done it had probably done it precisely because it was her, of all people. Dean was taking most of her weight by the time they made it to the bathroom, and he set her carefully on the closed toilet. "Don't... leave me," she breathed as the edges of her vision began to close in.

"Of course I won't leave you," Dean said, turning her head to check her eyes and then sighing deeply. "Shit, Maud, I'm sorry this happened to you, but I'll make sure nothing else happens to you, I swear."

Anyone else, she might have had some doubt about, but Dean was the kindest person she knew, and a man of his word. She nodded woozily and then fell forward against him.

Dean managed to move Maud to his bedroom before she completely blacked out, just barely. He put her into the recovery position, pressed his fingers to her clammy forehead, and then covered her with a blanket before sitting on the edge of the bed to figure out what to do now.

He  _ wasn't  _ going to call anyone else in to sit with her. Of the people he'd invited to this party, none of them stood out as the type to roofie a person, which meant anyone could have done it, he had no real idea who. Maud was a divisive person; she had real friends, of course, but also people who genuinely hated her, and Dean hadn't thought anyone who hated her was here tonight. 

After a few minutes, he texted Nick, who he knew was locked away in his own room, not fond of Dean's gatherings but not about to tell him he couldn't have them.  _ I'm really sorry but can you get everyone out of here? I'm handling a crisis. _

_ yes  _ the reply came, five seconds later. Dean sighed in relief. Nick wasn't the type to ask questions when there was something to be done. Dean privately thought that Nick might take a certain satisfaction in telling everyone to GTFO. He could hear the music cut out, and the raised rasp of Nick's voice, though he couldn't make out the words through the bedroom door.

Ten minutes later, there was a tap on Dean's door. He cracked it open to find Nick standing behind Jack, whose eyes were frantic behind his very smudged glasses. 

"Have you seen Maud?" Jack asked. "We drove over together... I can't leave without her, but I can't find her, she might have left..."

"She's here," Dean said, and didn't open the door wider. "She's having a rough night. I'm going to keep an eye on her. I'll drive her home in the morning."

"Is she  _ that _ mad at me?" Jack asked, sounding like someone had just dropped his laptop out a window. "I know we were arguing, but I didn't think—"

"I don't think she's mad at you, Jack, but she's not leaving tonight." 

"Just... tell her I'm sorry for what I said to her, please... ask her to text me so I know she's all right." 

"I will," Dean said. Jack nodded and turned to leave. 

Nick watched him exit the apartment and then turned his steady gaze on Dean. "What's going on?"

"Someone spiked her drink," Dean said. "She's passed out. I promised to keep her safe."

"Everyone else is gone. Place is kind of a mess. Will she be okay?"

"I hope so," Dean said fervently. He walked back over to check on her: still clammy, but breathing steadily, turned on her side in case she had a more adverse reaction to the drugs. "Can I impose on you a little more?"

"I'll help you clean up."

Dean scrubbed the spilled drink out of the carpet, not able to identify what it had been besides fruit flavored and sickly sweet, getting up to check on Maud every ten minutes until the stain was faint enough to hopefully get out with a carpet cleaner. Nick collected empty plates and cups into a trash bag and then brought it out to the can at the curb, rinsed out bottles and tossed them into the recycling bin, and then came out of the kitchen with a tiny paper packet in a sandwich baggie.

"I found this by the counter where drinks were being mixed," he said, and offered it to Dean. "I didn't touch it. I don't know if the cops will care if no one got hurt, but they might be able to pull prints."

"I'll give it to Maud in the morning and let her decide what she wants to do," Dean said, and sat heavily down on the couch, turning the baggie over in his hands. "This is so fucked up."

"It could have been a lot more fucked up," Nick pointed out. "Who do you think did it?"

"I have no idea," Dean said. "If this was an episode of SVU, they'd probably investigate the boyfriend first, but I really don't think Jack would hurt her with anything but his words. I heard them arguing, but she walked away from him before I could break it up. I don't know who else noticed them fighting, but anyone could have seen that she was bothered..." 

"You didn't let him take her home," Nick said.

"He didn't push," Dean said. "If he'd pushed, I'd have doubts. But he seemed to think she was with me for a sob session." Nick nodded. "No one else asked about her as they were leaving?"

"No one," Nick said. 

"Guess we'll have to wait for the evidence to speak," Dean said, and sighed as he got up to check on Maud again. 

Nick followed him to the door of his bedroom and leaned against the sill, watching Dean bend to check her pulse and breathing again. "You can bunk with me if you don't want the couch," he offered quietly.

"No, I'm just going to doze off next to her... easier to keep an eye on her that way." Dean looked over and offered Nick the best smile he could muster under the circumstances. "Thanks for helping, Nick. I appreciate you so much."

"No problem," Nick said, and hesitated mid-turn. "Text me if you need anything else," he added, and pulled the bedroom door shut behind him.

"Crime scene kit and access to national databases," Dean muttered, settling down on the other side of the bed still in his party clothes, and setting his phone to chirp every thirty minutes so he could make sure Maud was still breathing.

He woke at the sound of a gasp to find Maud looking around his room with panic in her eyes. "Maud, hey, shh, you're okay," Dean said, and her gaze fixed on him.

"Dean? What happened? Why am I here?"

"Someone roofied you last night," Dean said as gently as he could. "I've been with you this whole time, no one touched you. Do you know who might have done it?"

"Let me think," she said, and closed her eyes with a pained wince at their edges. "Jack pissed me off... I walked away from him, into the kitchen, to cool down. Someone handed me a cup..." She whimpered and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't know. It's like looking through fog. It feels like someone's drilling through my temples."

"Shit, I'm sorry," Dean said, and popped up to get her a painkiller and a bottle of water. "Nick... found what might be evidence," he said as she took long swallows of water. "I don't know if you can get the prints run, somehow..."

"I know someone who might be able to," she said. "Dean... thank you for looking out for me."

"Of course," Dean said, covering her hand with his. "Oh, Jack... wanted me to tell you he's sorry for what he said."

"I'm sorry for what I said too," she said, and patted her pockets to find her phone, discovering a screen full of texts from Jack elaborating on those apologies. She looked up from them with her brows knitted. "Does Jack know what happened to me?"

"I didn't tell him," Dean said. "I just said you were spending the night with me. He was worried, but... breakup worried, not worried for your life."

"He'll help me figure out who did this... and then probably kill them," Maud said, with a certain grim satisfaction in her voice.

"You're  _ sure _ it wasn't him?" Dean hated to raise the possibility, but Maud cut her hand through the air sharply.

"I am absolutely certain that he had nothing to do with it," Maud said, "but I bet it was someone who heard us arguing and knew I wasn't likely to walk back over to him." She curled her fingers around Dean's wrist tightly. "I'm glad I walked over to you, of all people."

"So am I," Dean said fervently.


	15. Hunkering Down (Jack/Maud, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU: Jack and Maud under quarantine orders.

Jack's idea of quarantine prep is a 48-pack of his favorite energy drink, a 24-pack of his favorite toilet paper, and subscribing to a meal delivery service so they won't have to go out for groceries. "This isn't a problem for me," he says, when Maud calls him out on it. "I'd _prefer_ to stay away from people, now I'm justified in it and still being paid for it?"

"Quarantine is a misanthrope's paradise," Maud says dryly, looking up from the day planner she has spread out on the kitchen table in front of her. "So what's your plan, caffeinate at will, sleep when unavoidable, shower when I start spritzing you with Febreeze?"

"I'm not a college student," Jack scoffs, even as he's pulling an energy drink out of the fridge. "I'll figure out a routine. Is that what you're doing?"

"Mm. Trying to. With all this time, I'd like to get things done in it that I haven't had time for before, you know? Learn a new hobby, or read those books that have been piling up..." She makes another note in her planner as Jack wanders over and peers at it nosily, then spreads her hand over the page. "Excuse me, make your own schedule, don't crib off mine."

"I just wanted to see if you scheduled me into your life at all," Jack protests. Maud taps a repeated entry, every day in the week: _dinner with Jack, post-dinner socialization_. "Oh, okay." He's not sure whether being scheduled is a relief, or being scheduled for so little time per day is a slap in the face. 

"We can do more things together, if you like," she says, sitting back in her chair and looking up at him. "But if we do too much together, we'll get burnt out on each other's company."

"Right," Jack says, and doesn't say, _I could never get burnt out on your company_. "Maybe we could learn to do something together. A game, or a craft, or something."

"Come up with a few things you'd be interested in doing, I'll do the same, and we can put our heads together to pick something," Maud suggests.

Jack ruthlessly tamps down the first idea that comes to mind, which is sitting on the couch making out, which is something he's wanted to do with Maud for longer than he cares to admit, and still hasn't found the courage to mention, not wanting to scare off the best friend he has for wanting more than friendship from her. "I'll figure a few things out," he says, "and I'll leave you to this for now."

"You know where I'll be if you need me," she says dryly, and gives him a smile before he leaves the room.

Yeah, he knows where she'll be for at least the next two weeks: locked in here with him. He expects that by the end of the quarantine either he'll have kissed her or she'll have killed him. Possibly both, immediately in sequence.


	16. A Helping Hand (Jack/Maud, Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dirty sequel to "Hunkering Down". Jack is blindsided by a smirk that almost certainly wasn't intended to be sexy, and Maud is too perceptive for him to make a graceful exit without garnering suspicion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the tense change. I don't know why I was super into present tense a couple weeks ago.
> 
> For the prompts "a helping hand (helping a buddy/friend, hand job)" and "accidental arousal in public"

The first week Jack and Maud spent in social isolation went so swimmingly that Jack made the critical mistake of starting to let his guard down during the time they spent together after dinner. They'd played board games, shown each other their favorite movies, Jack had taught Maud how to knit and Maud had shown Jack how to whittle, and they talked, a lot, more than Jack thought they ever had before. That wouldn't have been as much of a problem if they were spending time with anyone else, but the upshot of their increasingly personal conversations was that Jack had gone from moderately crushing on his roommate to being full-blown crazy about her. Fool he was, he thought he had a handle on it, that he could keep her from finding out until he was ready for her to know.

It was on day ten of their isolation that Jack definitively lost whatever handle he thought he had on it. He couldn't even blame it on Maud; she didn't do anything she hadn't been doing for days. They traded off dinner duty, and tonight Jack was playing sous-chef, chopping vegetables so Maud could keep her focus on the soup she was making. She made some stupid pun, and he looked over to give her the glare she deserved for such a bad one, and found her glancing over her shoulder at him with a smirk that was probably meant to be playful but hit him like a lit match to a tinder pile. 

"What's wrong?" she asked when he didn't say anything, just stared at her with his lips half-parted and his cheeks suddenly flushed. "Don't tell me you're getting feverish on the last day you could start showing symptoms," she sighed, putting down the wooden spoon to turn and lay her hand against his forehead, which only had the practical effect of making his face more red. 

"I'm... fine," he said, and turned back to the cutting board to try to keep her from noticing the fact that something about the line of her neck, or her half-lidded eyes, or that smirk he had to be misinterpreting to read as flirtatious, had turned him on like she'd flipped a switch. "Lost in thought. Sorry."

"If you say so," Maud said neutrally. "I've been going on, anyways, I don't blame you for wandering off. I believe it's your turn to pick a topic."

"Give me a minute to collect my thoughts, sorry..." He'd almost been done prepping the vegetables. Focusing very intently on slicing a yellow squash did nothing to squash his inconvenient erection.

"I don't think I've ever heard you apologize twice in as many sentences, what's wrong?" Well, half the reason he loved her was that she was razor-sharp and didn't miss a beat, he just hadn't realized what a problem that would be for him. "Is it something I said?"

"No," Jack said, and slid the cutting board over to her. "You didn't do anything." He hesitated, sure she'd realize if he stayed and equally sure she wouldn't leave him alone if he left. "I'm... faint with hunger," he said, trying to make a joke of it. "I'm just going to go sit down until dinner's ready, if you don't mind."

"Of course not," she said. He waited for her to start adding veggies to the pot to make his escape. 

_Calm down, you're too old for this kind of bullshit,_ he told himself sternly, retreating to the living room to try to cool down from getting all worked up over nothing at all, pulling a couch pillow onto his lap and half curling up around it. He thought he'd have a little time to himself with her tending dinner, but only a couple of minutes later she followed him out, concern clear in her dark eyes.

"Please tell me what's wrong," Maud said. "You're a terrible liar and I've obviously upset you."

"You didn't upset me," Jack said, and weighed his options: lie, and have her pull him apart until he told her the truth, or fess up and accept his banishment from her company for unacceptable behavior. No sense in going the route that would result in her losing respect for him twice over. "I'm... the thing is, Maud, you... oh, goddammit."

"Jack, I swear to god, if you've been hiding coronavirus like a zombie bite, I will kill you myself," she said, but playfully. He let out a choked laugh and sat up straight, shaking his head.

"I'm not sick. Well. I'm lovesick," he said, and when her brow furrowed, he went on as bravely as he could, "You're... everything I've ever wanted in a partner, I thought so before we got shut in here together, and I'm only more certain now, but you... I know you weren't flirting with me in the kitchen, but you're incredibly sexy when you're not trying to be, and I'm... helpless in the face of your beauty."

"I'm what now?" she said, utterly bemused by his confession, looking down at her t-shirt and pajama pants and back up at him. "I'm sexy? Since when?"

"As long as I've known you and undoubtedly before that," Jack said. "But when you smirk... You don't know what you do to me." 

Maud eyed him for a long moment and then sat down next to him on the couch, that smirk back on her lips. "I didn't mean to turn you on," she said matter-of-factly, "but now that I've done it I feel like I should see it through." 

"Um...?" Jack wondered if he was going to have a heart attack and die on the spot when she put her hand on the pillow on his lap. "You don't have to do anything..."

"I don't _have_ to do anything," she agreed, "but if I _want_ to do something, would you let me?"

"Yes," he breathed, and let her pull the pillow away.

"Good," she said when he moved his hands, and then again in a different tone when she tossed the pillow to the other end of the couch, " _Good_." She didn't hesitate to cup a hand over the very noticeable line of his erection through his lounge pants, and showed her teeth when he gasped at her touch. "You know, this makes a lot of your behavior make more sense," she said conversationally as she squeezed him. 

"Please don't reveal your analysis of me with your hand on my dick," Jack said, fighting the urge to cover his face with his hands. 

"No, no, not in a bad way," she was quick to assure him. "I just didn't expect _that_ to be the reason I caught you looking at me so often. I thought you were being critical of me, not mooning over me." She neatly cut off whatever response he was going to make by tugging loose the strings of his pants and slipping her hand into them. Her fingers felt cool against his overheated flesh, and she looked delighted when he shivered. "You know, you're cute when you blush."

"What do I have to offer you to get you to not talk for the next five minutes?" he asked, not sure if he was trying to make a joke or not.

"Sufficient kisses to occupy me in that time," Maud said promptly, and grinned at him. "Come on, Jack, do you honestly think you're the only one who's thought about this?"

"...you _have_?" That was almost more shocking than her touching him, honestly; she'd been a _lot_ more subtle about it than he felt like he'd been. Well, she'd told him her conditions, there was nothing he'd rather do than meet them. His hands framed her face before Jack leaned in to kiss her without trying to hide the amount of passion he felt about her.

There was a lot that Maud thought about saying in the time he kept her occupied with the kisses she'd requested as she took him to pieces with a single hand, but by the time she swallowed his whimper of release as he spilled over her fingers, there was only one thing that demanded to be whispered in his ear as he reeled in the afterglow: "Let's pick this back up later tonight," she breathed, and all he could do was nod frantically.


	17. Paperback Roommate (Dean and Nick, College)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has never lived with anyone besides his family before, and the fact that his attempts to contact his college roommate before they arrived on campus failed leaves him feeling unpleasantly like he's lost the plot. When he finally lays eyes on Nick, he figures out what kind of story this is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt table: "Artisent Chronicles/Meeting/Fluff/College/Mystery"

Dean wasn't scared. Nervous, okay, yes, nervous. He was nervous. Worried, also. Strongly concerned. But not _scared._ Just because he'd never shared living space with anyone except his (very gentle, very loving, very weird) family didn't mean that rooming with someone new was going to be a disaster. After all, _he_ was a ray of sunshine, so unless it turned out he'd been paired up with Oscar the Grouch, all Dean had to do was be his usual charming, happy self, and it would be fine.

It was just, he'd sent four emails to the person he was supposed to be rooming with over the summer, and he'd gotten no response. Not to the first one, not to the funny one, not to the hopeful one, not to the (if he was going to be honest, more than) slightly desperate one he'd sent three days ago in a last-ditch attempt to make contact before he came face to face with the person he'd been assigned to share his living space with for the next ten months.

Dean wasn't a big fan of mysteries in real life. Fiction, sure, he binged his way through the mystery section at the library every summer reading program, but a mystery like this that was going to impact him so seriously? No. No way. He preferred to know where he stood, or at least who he was standing with.

All he knew about his roommate was his name. Nick Granger. Not much to go on. He hadn't been able to find the guy on Facebook or anything. All he had was the email address in the letter from the college letting him know who he'd been assigned to, and that email address either hadn't been checked or belonged to the kind of guy that... Dean didn't want to assume Nick would be, based on something as spurious as four unanswered emails.

When he arrived at the dormitory first thing in the morning on move-in day, the room was empty, and by the time his family helped him carry his stuff inside and kissed him goodbye, the nervousness had been slightly muffled by the excitement of being an honest-to-God college student in a real life dorm. Dean set about decorating his side of the room with a cheerful whistle, winding string lights around the foot of his bed, tacking up a Captain America poster over his dresser, unloading his clothes from the mess they'd been in his duffel bag to a more orderly arrangement into closet and dresser. By the time his grumbling stomach informed him that it was about time to see about the dining hall situation, Dean was pleased with how he'd gotten it all looking.

By the time he came back from lunch, barely an hour later, he found the dorm room door unlocked and a skinny, redheaded guy making the other bed in what appeared to be thrift-store sheets, who jumped about three feet in the air when Dean coughed to announce himself. 

"Hi," Dean said, "Didn't mean to scare you." All he got was a goggle-eyed look in response, and he stupidly thought, _wow, super blue..._ "I'm Dean. Dean Al-Din. You're Nick?"

"I'm Nick." Nick gave Dean a once-over that reminded Dean of nothing more than the assessment he received from the street cats he helped his mom catch for the trap-neuter-release program, _is he a danger? where should I strike if I have to?_ Then Nick blinked and shook his head slightly. "Nick Granger. Hi."

"Nice to meet you," Dean said, and kicked his shoes off so he could sit on his bed with his legs crossed, watching Nick go back to making his bed. There was a battered cardboard box on Nick's dresser, and a ragged, overstuffed backpack on his desk, and... it didn't look like he'd brought much of anything else with him, yet. "Do you need help bringing your stuff up?"

"No. I'm done." 

"Okay.... so, where are you from? I grew up a few hours from here, this is actually my dad's alma mater." Nick seemed taciturn. Dean was confident that he could get Nick to talk; Dean could get almost anyone to talk with enough cheerful encouragement. It was one of his special talents.

"I'm... not from anywhere," Nick said.

"Everyone's from somewhere," Dean insisted.

"I got bounced between foster homes too much to be from anywhere," Nick said, quietly and firmly and very much like he didn't plan to elaborate. 

"Oh," Dean said, and suddenly the threadbare quality of Nick's belongings made more sense. Well, shit. Dean had been lucky enough to be adopted early; he knew that not every kid who was abandoned found a real home. He bit his lip uncertainly and then offered, "Want to walk around campus later and get ourselves familiar with the layout? It's a beautiful day and the grounds are gorgeous."

Nick finished tucking in his sheet— with hospital corners, Dean noticed— and turned around to fix those striking blue eyes on Dean with an indecipherable expression on his face. "You're... outgoing."

"I'm friendly," Dean corrected. "Well, _and_ outgoing. Extroverted. Gregarious. I've been accused of being chatty."

"I'm not," Nick said. "I'm none of that."

"I'd prefer us to be friends than strangers sharing a bedroom," Dean said hopefully. "I've never lived with someone I don't know before and I'm honestly kind of freaked out about it."

Nick opened and closed his mouth, then sighed quietly and said, "Yeah. Sorry. I'm not... the easiest person to live with. I'll just try to stay out of your way."

"No," Dean said, a little louder than he meant to, then covered his mouth with one hand, dark eyes wide over it. "Um. I mean, I'd rather... you're not going to be a bother. You don't have to stay out of my way. I'm afraid I'm going to bother you more. I talk all the time and I'll probably drive you crazy without meaning to. I can try to shut up but I don't know how long I can keep it up."

"I don't care if you talk as long as you don't expect me to answer," Nick said.

"I don't even expect you to pay attention," Dean said with a laugh. "Unless I'm talking _to_ you and not just talking. But you'll know the difference. Promise." 

"So you just... talk to hear yourself talk?"

"Only when I'm being ignored," Dean said, lowering his hand to reveal a smile. "I guess it's up to you whether I'm talking to myself or not."

"You're... strange, aren't you?"

"I've been accused of being strange before."

"So have I... but not in the same way," Nick said. He turned to start unpacking the box. "We could, um, we could take that walk later. If you wanted. It's better to familiarize yourself with a new place."

"Sure thing," Dean said, brightening up. "I heard the dining hall on the east side of campus has a froyo machine. Sounds like a good reason to head in that direction first." He studied Nick while he folded clothes and stored them away.

Well. Nick was still a mystery, but Dean felt like he'd at least read the back cover now and had some idea of what his story was like. Hopefully, they would become friends, and Dean would get more than a blurb to go on in understanding the person fate had decreed him to bunk with.


	18. Waking Up (Nick, Dean, College AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Nine of Swords reversed". 
> 
> _When the Nine of Swords appears reversed it indicates that you are waking up from the nightmare of thinking you are less than you are._

For most of his life, Nick never heard a good thing about himself. Bouncing from foster home to group home, he tried his best to behave so he could stay, but inevitably someone would come up with a reason to kick him out, and it was on to the next place. He couldn't understand what made people hate him so much: he tried to be polite and quiet and obedient, but he was constantly hearing that he was difficult and creepy and weird, not just from the other kids targeting him for bullying, but from the adults who should have been protecting him from that sort of abuse.

When he managed to get into a state college, Nick resolved to do nothing that would make his new roommate turn on him the way so many of his roommates before had. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and stay out of the guy's way and he should be fine, right? Except that strategy had failed him so many times in the past. He just had to hope that whoever he ended up rooming with wouldn't see him as an easy target and would leave him be.

Nick never in a million years could have predicted the type of person he found himself with. Dean was exuberant, constantly chatty, full of jokes and stories and questions and thoughts that he couldn't seem to contain within his lanky frame. There was kindness in his eyes that Nick had never seen before, especially not aimed at him. He was _so_ friendly, always asking Nick if he wanted to come along to the dining hall or the quad or the gym or wherever he was going, he was always going somewhere, always trying to be around people. 

At first, Dean had tried to ask Nick questions about himself, trying to get to know his new roommate; unfortunately, questions that were innocuous to a person who'd grown up in a happy home were a minefield to someone who'd lead the sort of life Nick had. It didn't take long for Dean to stop asking about Nick's past and start asking about his future, no more "where are you from?" but a lot of "where do you want to be?" The questions he posed could be baffling to Nick, but they forced him to think, shifting his focus from the trauma of his past to the wide-open blank pages that lay before him, a story yet to be written that Dean kept gently encouraging him to take ownership of, to move the narrative in a direction less tragic than where it had started.

A couple of weeks into their cohabitation, Dean brought home a wilted-looking spider plant that he'd liberated from the classroom of a teacher who'd had to take an unplanned sabbatical. "I figured I could at least try to keep it alive for her," he said, setting the pot on his messy desk.

"I'll take it. I'm good with plants," Nick said. 

Dean looked up from the long, browning leaves, dark eyes wide. "I think that's the first time I've heard you say you're good at something," he said.

"I'm not good at many things," Nick said, looking down at the plant so he didn't have to meet that wide-open gaze. 

"I think you're better at more things than you realize, or you can be," Dean said, and nudged Nick lightly with his elbow. "All right, the plant's all yours."

The plant was lush and green before midterms, and started sprouting off baby plants a couple of weeks after that. Nick bought little pots and planted the babies, carefully nursing them until he had a row of spider plants lined up on the windowsill. Dean brought home little plastic ducks to sit in the pots, naming each plant for the novelty duck: Sparky for the fireman duck, Captain for the pirate duck, Hermione for the duck with a book. It felt good to be good at something, even better to have that recognized, and Dean made a point of commenting how well the plants were thriving under Nick's care. Nick didn't realize the size of his smile any time Dean complimented his skills, but Dean definitely realized, and wanted to see that wide smile as often as he could.


	19. Rainbows and Corgi Dogs vs Edgy Bullshit (Maud, Jack, Dean, Modern College AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Group projects are usually the bane of Maud's existence. Getting matched up with the class clown and the class know-it-all doesn't seem to bode well for her.

Group projects were usually the bane of Maud's existence. She was so used to being stuck doing all the work just to pass that when she was assigned to a group with the class clown and the class know-it-all, she sighed and resigned herself to once again dealing with a bunch of twerps who'd blow her off and half-ass their part of the work.

"Oh, man, I am _so_ excited to work with the two of you!" Dean chirped as they assembled in one corner of the lecture hall. 

"Why, because it means you won't have to lift a finger?" Jack snarked, pushing up his glasses with his lip curled scornfully. 

Dean blinked, then turned up the brightness of his smile. "What, are you kidding? I _love_ research projects! And you always have something interesting to chip into discussions, and _you..."_ He turned his grin on Maud. "Well, no one who works with you ever gets less than a B+, so either you're really good at running things, or you're used to doing everything and you'll be relieved to work with people who'll pull their weight!"

"Do you usually pull your weight?" Maud asked as neutrally as she could. 

"Yes, of course I do..." Dean looked taken aback for a moment, then added, "Just because I'm a goof doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing, you know. I'm acing this class."

"Could have fooled me," Jack muttered.

"Are you going to be a snarky asshole this entire time, or do you just have to get it out of your system?" Maud snapped. 

Jack blinked twice and pushed his glasses up again. "What do you care if I'm not snarking at you?" 

"I care because if you're going to be a dick every time we get together for the next month, I'd rather just do it myself and not deal with you."

"I'm not leaving _my_ grade in _your_ hands," Jack said scornfully. 

"You might as well, she always passes," Dean said. "Whatever it's worth, _I'm_ not a snarky asshole and I'm ready to do the work. What are we going to pick for a topic? I think it would be fun to do something about social media. Maybe we could make something go viral and chart its spread!"

"That's ridiculous," Jack said. "You can't predict what will go viral."

"Maybe _you_ can't," Dean said. "I, on the other hand, am a meme king, and I can guarantee at least one viral tweet or Tiktok video in the first week of our project."

"Bullshit," Jack said. 

"I want to hear more," Maud said, only partly out of interest, but mostly because Jack was annoying and deserved to be annoyed back.

Dean brightened and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "You may know me from such viral videos as "parakeet riding a guinea pig riding a corgi" and "what is that cat doing in the garden?" but my pride and joy is..." He pulled up his Twitter account and showed them his pinned tweet.

"That was _you_?" Maud asked, genuinely impressed. "All right, if you want to study memetic spread, I'm down."

"...I suppose," Jack said grudgingly, not able to argue with the 468k likes and 25k retweets of Dean's tweet. "I refuse to engage with Twitter on behalf of this project. It's a cesspool and I will not interact with it."

"You don't have to," Dean said. "I've got that covered. But you're a number cruncher, right? You can analyze the data. I'll set up the analytics and pass them along to you."

"So what should I do?" Maud asked, already excited that the answer wasn't "literally everything". 

"I don't know, what would you like to do? I'm not great at writing reports, but I'm not going to dump it on you."

"I'm fine with writing it up," Maud said.

" _Awesome_ ," Dean said. "Can I add you both on Messenger so we can collaborate on this?"

"I don't use it," Jack said.

"...group text, then?"

"If you start sending me memes, I will nuke every device you own beyond repair," Jack said as he wrote down his number for them both.

"Jack, you're at a nine and you need to pull it back to like, a three," Dean said seriously. "I can't work with you if you're going to be so hostile all the time."

"Look, sunshine, just because you're all rainbows and corgi dogs doesn't mean I have to conform to your weirdo standards of absurd cheerfulness," Jack said. 

Maud pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I prefer rainbows and corgi dogs to... whatever edgy bullshit you're on," she said. 

Jack sniffed sharply and shoved his glasses up again. "Fine, whatever. I can be civil for three hours a week if you'll promise not to annoy me the other 165 of them."

"Great," Dean chirped. "Then I'll get to work on crafting my next viral hit tonight, and I'll submit it for group approval by next lecture, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan," Maud said. Jack just nodded. 

Dean flashed a thumbs up and shifted his backpack onto his shoulder. "Cool. See you Wednesday!" 

Maud watched him leave, then turned to Jack with her brows furrowed. "Class isn't over for another thirty minutes."

"Nope," he said. 

"...if he's leaving, I'm going to leave too."

"Do what you want," he said. "I'm going to stay in case there's anything else we need to know about the project that wasn't in the handout."

"Okay, well... catch you around," she said, and picked up her messenger bag to leave.

Jack watched her go, fist pressed to his mouth thoughtfully. _Well, this isn't great_ , he thought ruefully. He might have been able to deal with being matched with the person who annoyed him the most _or_ the person who intrigued him the most, but both together? _I might not survive this project._


	20. Make Some Noise (Dean and Nick, College)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's quest for a viral hit leads him to ask a favor from Nick.

"What are you doing?"

Dean _almost_ screamed at the sound of his roommate's voice, fumbling his phone thankfully onto his lap and not onto the floor. " _Jesus_ ," he said, and looked over his shoulder. "Make some noise when you come in, would you? Slam the door or something. Trying to give me a heart attack at the tender age of twenty."

"Sorry," Nick said, and slung his backpack onto his desk. "But what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to craft a killer joke in 280 characters or less," Dean said, "but I want a visual punchline and I don't have the visual yet."

"...okay," Nick said doubtfully. "Someone was looking for you in the quad. Short, dark hair, dark eyes..."

"Male or female?" Dean asked.

"Uh, male presenting, but I didn't ask for clarification?" Nick blinked a couple of times, then shrugged. "Nerdy looking. Thick glasses."

"Okay," Dean said, wondering what the hell Jack wanted with him when he hadn't said anything directly to Dean that hadn't been a threat in the three days they'd been in a group together. Maybe Jack had just figured that he'd be out in public doing his viral voodoo. "Well, I'll text him, I'm not going out there to find him."

"Sure," Nick said. 

"Hey, you have access to the campus greenhouse, right? Do you think you could get me in there?"

"Why?"

"For the lulz, of course," Dean said, and offered a bright smile in response to Nick's blank look.


	21. Middle Class Desperation (Jack/Maud, Dean, College)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's big plan to seed a viral hit: run a bake sale. The problem with that is making the stuff to sell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt table: "Artisent Chronicles, Bake Sale, Fluff, Writer's Choice (any AU), Cloying"

"These are disgusting," Jack said, spitting the bite of cake pop out into a napkin. Dean made an offended sound, but Maud plucked the stick out of his hand and waved it at him.

"Be specific, if you're going to criticize. What's wrong with it?"

"It's... _cloying._ It doesn't taste sweet, it tastes saccharine. Artificial."

"It's cake crumbs held together with frosting, I don't know what you want me to tell you," Dean sighed. "We used real ingredients..."

"Ehhh..." Maud wobbled a hand back and forth in the air. 

"We used real cake mix and frosting?"

"That's the taste. Middle class desperation. Like coming home after school to an empty house and an unsatisfying snack." Jack blinked when he realized that Dean and Maud were staring at him strangely, then sneered. "They're bad. That's all."

"Okay, we did it the lazy way this time," Maud allowed. "Take two, from scratch. Have to find a good frosting recipe..."

"Well, my mom does an amazing buttercream," Dean offered.

"Why didn't you say that yesterday?" Maud sighed, tossed the empty pop stick at him, and grabbed another cake pop to shove into her mouth. Jack wrinkled his nose at her, and she mumbled, "middle class desperation tastes like working class luxury, you ass," and swallowed.

"So we're putting off the bake sale by another day?" Jack asked, trying to pretend he didn't abruptly feel like a huge jerk. 

"Sunday instead of Saturday? We might as well push it to Monday if we want foot traffic," Maud said. It had been Dean's idea to use a bake sale as a viral video breeding ground, but it wasn't worth doing unless there'd be a lot of people around.

"Good, that gives us more time to bake," Dean chirped. "So... what should we do with these if we're not using them?"

"I'll make sure they're dealt with," Maud said immediately, and put the lid on the box and hugged it to her chest.

Idly, Jack wondered what her reaction would be if he brought her pastries from the Italian bakery he liked. Either she'd like them, or she'd call him an elitist prick. Or maybe she'd do both. As soon as he realized that he genuinely wanted to find out, he pulled his backpack on and headed for the door. "If we're done," he said offhandedly.

"Buh-bye," Maud said. "Try to bring something more useful than your upper-class tastebuds next time."

Well, if she was going to dare him, he _had_ to do it...


	22. You're Not On Your Own (Dean and Nick, College)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt table: "Writer's choice, sickness, hurt/comfort, college, loud"

Nick was rudely awakened to the sound of his roommate being noisily sick into the wastebasket that had previously been between their desks. Groggily, he lifted his head and wrinkled his nose. "Dean?"

"Uh-huh," Dean said, and spat into the trash. "Ugh, I don't remember the last time I felt this bad."

"You sick?" He sure looked sick in the orange light filtering through the blinds across their window. Nick slid out of bed and padded across the room to lay the back of his hand against Dean's forehead.

Dean goggled up at him wide-eyed at the only casual touch he'd ever received from Nick, even though Nick withdrew his hand as soon as he determined that Dean was burning up. "I'm... yeah."

"Sick and not drunk?"

"I'm not drunk," Dean confirmed, and made a queasy little sound as he sat up straighter. "Feel like I've been hit by a truck. Carrying manure."

"You look pretty rough," Nick said, not unkindly, and went into the mini fridge under his desk to hand Dean the last bottle of Gatorade he had in there. "Here, sip this. What do you usually do when you're sick?"

"Usually my mom takes care of me," Dean said ruefully. "Never been on my own for it before."

"...you're not on your own," Nick said, and went to dig through his desk drawer, rattling bottles until he found what he was looking for and shook two pills into his palm. "Here, take these."

"What are they?" Dean asked, after he'd already swallowed them.

"Just tylenol," Nick said. "For the fever."

"Oh... 'kay," Dean said, and tugged at his sweat-soaked shirt. "Ugh, I'm a mess. I should... go take a shower or something. Get rid of this." He nodded at the befouled trash bin.

"How about you just sit here for a minute and finish that bottle," Nick said.

"Why are you taking care of me?" Dean asked, not trying to be contrary, just simply bemused. 

"Because you're not used to being alone when you're sick," Nick said. "And... because I _am_ used to being alone when I'm sick. So I know what to do." He snagged the trash and started for the door, adding over his shoulder, "Don't worry. I'll make sure you're okay."

"Thank you," Dean said, but Nick didn't stick around to acknowledge it.


	23. "Of course, you realize this means war!" (Dean, Nick, College AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PWB asked for Dean pranking someone with water balloons, and all I could do was oblige.

"You're either with me or you're against me," Dean said ominously. 

Nick blinked down at the plastic tote box filled to the brim with water balloons in Dean's arms, his eyes widened, and he quickly said, "I'm with you."

" _Excellent._ How's your aim?"

"Uh..." Nick wobbled a hand back and forth in the air, and Dean nodded.

"All right, then you're in charge of munitions and I'll be the trigger man."

"And... what are we doing with these?"

"We're going to ruin Jack's day," Dean chirped.

"Is that a good idea? Isn't he kind of...."

"Batshit crazy?"

"I was going to say intense," Nick said.

"Yeah, that's another word for it. Look, he's been a dick to me for the entirety of this project, and I have mostly put up with it without complaint. Because I always intended to get my vengeance."

"You can be scary," Nick said, and Dean beamed at him.

"Me? I'm harmless. Except to reputations. And I'm gonna make this jackass go viral, since he's so doubtful I can do it on command."

"So who's recording?"

"Ah, that's the trick!" Dean put the box of water balloons down to pick up a clunky looking pair of sunglasses from his desk. "These have an embedded camera. So I'll be doing the recording, which means when he looks at me in that nerdy rage of his, he's looking straight into the video recorder."

"And.... we're just going to find him and bombard him?"

"Oh, no. No, Nick, that's far too simple. There's another conspirator in this plan. Maud's going to get him into the quad under the foot bridge."

"...wait, you're going to splash him when he thinks he's on a date? That's kind of low, isn't it?"

"Date? Who said anything about a date? He thinks it's for homework."

"I'm just saying... he might get more mad than you think he will."

"I sure hope so! The madder he gets, the funnier this will be." Dean picked the box back up and arched his brows at Nick. "So... you in?"

"I'm too scared of you to say no," Nick said.

"I can't tell if you're joking or not," Dean said, ducking his head so he could look at Nick over the glasses. "You're not serious, are you?"

"I'm not scared of you, Dean," Nick said. "But I'm _terrified_ of what you might do."

"Well, that won't do," Dean said. "I want you to feel safe with me."

"Then next time, don't lead with "you're either with me or against me," maybe?"

"Fair enough!" Dean tapped his fingertips on the tote box. "So... you coming?"

"Yeah, I'm in," Nick said, almost entirely for the sake of getting Dean to grin at him again.


	24. Fond Delusions (Dean, Maud, College)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Seven of Cups".

"You're dreaming," Maud said, as neutrally as she could. "He's either straight or asexual. Leave the poor boy alone."

"Excuse me," Dean said, one hand pressed to his chest in offense. "I don't remember soliciting your opinion." His eyes kept tracking Nick across the quad, watching until that red-gold hair shining in the sun disappeared around the corner of the science building.

"Seriously, you're visibly mooning over him, I'm just telling you to stop wasting your time," she said. "Falling for your roommate is always a recipe for disaster, guaranteed."

"Don't be such a negative Nancy, Maud. It's not _always_ a disaster."

" _This_ is going to be a disaster," she said, utterly certain. "You're just falling into wishful thinking, man, it's sad to see you set yourself up for heartbreak like this."

"Why are you attacking me like this?" Dean asked mournfully. "Let me be a big gay disaster without your commentary, okay? I'm allowed to have ill-advised romantic aspirations too."

"I'm not saying this to protect you, dork, I'm saying it to protect _him_ ," Maud said, hitting Dean none-too-gently with her notebook. "You're going to make a move and he won't have any place to retreat to. Leave him alone. How would _you_ feel if someone you thought was your friend was only interested in you romantically?"

"I'm not only interested in him romantically," Dean said with a scowl. "I'm interested in him, uh... holistically?"

"Like a chiropractor?" Maud asked, a laugh in her voice.

"Like, _comprehensively_ ," Dean clarified. "Look, I know I can't make a move on him, all right? I know you're right. But let me have my daydreams. I'm not stupid enough to break his trust in me like that. He's had it broken enough already."

"Just... tread lightly," Maud sighed. She caught sight of Jack turning into the quad from the dining hall and waved at him.

Dean had his own opinions about who was dreaming and who should or shouldn't make a move, but he wasn't mean enough to blow up Jack's spot yet. If Maud was keen enough to clock Dean's crush but couldn't spot Jack's, she didn't deserve to know, anyways.


	25. Do You Like The Succ? (Dean/Nick, College)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean makes plans; they don't go quite the way he hopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two prompt table fills: "Artisent Chronicles/Misunderstanding/All Dialogue/college/unexpected" and "Artisent Chronicles, Disappointment, hurt/comfort, writer’s choice, denial"

_Three weeks into the semester:_

"Dean?"

"Mm?"

"Did you... actually mean to send that meme to me? Or was that meant for someone else?"

"Don't you like it? I thought you were into plants. Could have sworn it would get a laugh out of you."

"It's, uh... a little... suggestive?"

"Fine, I won't get you succulents for your birthday. On to plan B."

"I mean, I'm not... I do like succulents. But even you have to admit that sending your roommate a meme that says 'do you like the succ' over an image of a lithops is..."

"Hilarious, I know, I'm still waiting for the laugh. ...any minute now... c'mon, Nick, humor me..."

"Heh."

"There we go! All I wanted."

"I will accept succulents sans innuendo as a birthday gift."

"Don't let me offend your delicate sensibilities. I just want to get you something you'll like for a long time. Those lithops things are basically immortal, right? That's a good one?"

"That'd be a great one."

"Super. Now forget I asked so it'll be a surprise."

"...I'll do my best."

* * *

_Two weeks before the end of the semester:_

"Happy birthday," Dean chirped, and pecked Nick's cheek fondly as soon as he entered their dorm room. He didn't expect to be shoved back onto his bed in a sprawl that sent the small gift in his hand flying, and from the shock in Nick's eyes, he hadn't meant to do it.

"I'm... sorry..." Color flooded Nick's face, and he turned around, shoulders practically reaching his ears. "You startled me."

"Sorry," Dean said, and tried very hard to not be disappointed by the fact that the semester was nearly over and his roommate was still holding him at arm's length despite all of Dean's earnest efforts to get closer. Why he'd gotten a crush on Nick, of all people, Dean still couldn't figure out. They were nothing alike in nearly any way, and it wasn't like Dean had any trouble making friends or finding dates when he wanted to, but... he didn't want an easy date. He wanted shy, prickly, quiet Nick, wanted to make him laugh and smile and loosen up a little, wanted more than anything to be the one who got behind those tall, thick walls that Nick had put up around himself.

"Did I hurt you?" Nick didn't turn around to see. 

"No, you didn't." Stifling a sigh, Dean picked up the present from the floor, inspected it for damage and found none. "And you didn't hurt your gift, either. Do you want it?"

"You didn't have to get me anything," Nick said.

"But I did. And honestly, you'd better take it, I'm afraid I'd kill it." That got Nick to turn around, brows arched, and Dean offered the present again, this time at arm's length. 

Nick split the tape with his nail despite the fact that the small box was only wrapped in the front page of the college newspaper, carefully unfolding the paper and lifting the lid to reveal a mottled red lithops the size of a fifty-cent coin. "Oh, _wow_ ," he said, easing the tiny square pot out of the box and bringing the plant into the sunlight to get a better look. "Oh, Dean, it's beautiful. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Dean said. Nick didn't look back at him, but Dean could see the edge of his smile, and he supposed he'd have to be content with that.

"This is... uh." Nick set the plant on the windowsill and turned around, but the smile was already gone. "This is the first birthday gift I've received."

"This year?"

"Any year," Nick clarified. 

Dean swallowed. Nick wasn't very forthcoming about his life, but every new piece of information Dean winnowed painted a bleaker picture of where Nick had come from. "Well, I... hope it's a good enough first one," he said after a moment.

"Lithops can live up to fifty years," Nick said, and very carefully put his hand on Dean's shoulder, as if he were afraid he'd be burned. "I'm never going to forget this," he said quietly but fervently, looking right into Dean's wide, dark eyes. "Thank you. Really."

"You're really, really welcome," Dean breathed. He knew beyond a doubt that leaning up and kissing Nick would ruin the entire moment, but that didn't mean he couldn't imagine it for just a second. Maybe... maybe some day, years down the line, Nick would look at the lithops and remember Dean fondly, but only if Dean didn't fuck it up right now. "You want to go out for dinner? Wherever you want," he offered, wondering if maybe he could get this moment to last a little longer.

"Not really," Nick said, but before Dean could feel too crestfallen he added, "Could we order in instead? I don't... really feel like going out."

"You don't trust me not to have the server sing Happy Birthday at you," Dean said mock-accusingly, and the smile that tugged at Nick's lips took his breath away. Fumbling for his phone, Dean brought up GrubHub and handed it over. "Go wild," he said, "But accept that now _I'm_ going to sing Happy Birthday at you."

"As long as you do it with the door closed," Nick said, and sat down next to Dean on Dean's bed, not touching but close enough to touch, if Dean was feeling stupid enough or daring enough. 

He wondered if he'd be enough of either before the night was over.


End file.
